League of Women Voters to screen school board candidates tonight

The Palm Beach County League of Women Voters will hold a public candidate screening for the five challengers vying to be the next District 1 Palm Beach County School Board Member.

The candidate screening, which is free and open to the public, will start at 6:30 p.m.in the Meldon Lecture Hall on the Palm Beach Gardens campus of Palm Beach State College, 3160 PGA Blvd, Palm Beach Gardens. The event is being co-sponsored by the college.

The five candidates running to replace outgoing incumbent Monroe Benaim in the Aug. 14 primary are former principal Mike Murgio, substitute teacher Robert Bittenbinder,stay at home parent Michael Howard, former Minnesota Commissioner of Education Christine Jax and former uniform business owner Lowell Levine.

If no candidate get more than 50 percent of the vote on Aug. 14 the top two candidates will stage a runoff in November. In the other two school board seats up this year, District 2 and District 5, incumbents Chuck Shaw and Frank Barbieri were automatically re-elected for another two years after nobody filed to challenge them by the deadline last month.